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Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Made in America

I'm a big fan of Bill Bryson so I picked up this book with great hopes. Despite lacking some of the usual Bryson humor that I really enjoy, I still found this book to be fascinating and well worth the read.

It's really a social history of the United States that uses language to show new inventions or ideas in society. I found it really interesting how new some of the words we use are. I also really enjoyed hearing how and when words first appeared on the scene.

One downside of the book is that Bryson wrote it in the early 90s. The book needs to be updated with all the new words we've had since then. Bryson talks about MS-DOS, but of course doesn't touch on the net, friending people, blogs, etc. Some sections are fine as is. Reading through the book and seeing the sections that need updating reminds you how much has changed in society in only the past fifteen years.

It's a great non-fiction book that's easy to read, but still has lots of information about history and culture.